21. Soap Beating

Private Pyle (Vincent D'Onofrio) is an overweight weak link among his severely hardened platoon in Kubrick's Vietnam picture, and it's the rest of the group's responsibility to help him improve. That means that one little fuck up from Pyle will result in punishment for the lot of them, though the bumbling soldier will be spared.

In an act of hazing, the troops enact their rage on Pyle, tying him down to his bunk as the men, one by one, beat him a bar of soap wrapped in a towel. Pyle's cries are the hardest thing to bear here. —TA